02.11.10
Another Microsoft Man Caught in a Scandal in the BBC
Summary: After Ashley Highfield had jumped from the BBC to join Microsoft UK, his colleague Erik Huggers (also originally from Microsoft) is caught spending £639 on a cab, or at least so he claims
LAST WEEK we gave a new example to show how the BBC is being used to glorify Microsoft. This is not a coincidence. There is a lot of executive overlap between the BBC and Microsoft UK [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
The Guardian has this scoop about Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology. He came from Microsoft and he is partly behind the iPlayer fiasco (along with his colleague Ashley Highfield, who is currently working for Microsoft UK). This a fiasco which we have covered in dozens of posts including:
- Why BBC is Microsoft Media (Video)
- Ashley Highfield to Finally Get Paid by His Masters
- Microsoft’s Grip on the BBC is Tightened
- Dear BBC, Shame on You
- Does Microsoft Take Over the BBC from the Inside?
- Quick Mention: Microsoft Could Grab ITV Like It Grabbed BBC
Here is a snippet from the Guardian (published 3 days ago):
As the BBC’s director of future media and technology, Eric Huggers is accustomed to wrestling with the most tricky questions relating to the corporation’s role in a rapidly changing digital age.
But even he may find himself struggling to answer one conundrum thrown up by his newly released expenses claims: how is it possible to justify spending £638.73 on a taxi?
It “must be the Microsoft high life he’s used to,” said Glyn Moody, who has been watching this whole Huggers saga for quite some time. He has just spent about $1000 on a cab. Well, even a trip/cruise from north to south (inside the UK) would not cost that much. Huggers is at least not among the Microsoft employees who are allegedly offering cruises with drugs and prostitutes to Microsoft distributors [1, 2].
“Huggers is at least not among the Microsoft employees who are allegedly offering cruises with drugs and prostitutes to Microsoft distributors.”We previously warned that Microsoft was spreading to all sorts of other companies and establishments like some kind of a dangerous cult. it’s sometimes known as “revolving doors” when staff goes back and forth like this, occupying both the media and the industry which it covers (or the regulators which watch over a company, e.g. Monsanto and the FDA).
“In the state of South Carolina,” wrote to us a reader last night, “Microsoft and its partners and field operatives are apparently now required to register or face a $25,000 fine.”
Another reader told us about it last night. █
Needs Sunlight said,
February 12, 2010 at 9:14 am
Business Week’s slam of Rohm’s book “The Microsoft File : The Secret Case against Bill Gates” can be re-examined now. The slam is mostly based on claiming that because some of the activities described by the investigative reporter are hard to believe, they must not be true and thus the other descriptions must also be false.
However, now we see that the investigative reporter Rohm was spot on even with those. Now it’s time to take a new look at the rest and how a small, petty, arrogant and paranoid nerd took a once thriving industry and destroyed it, harming many peripheral industries in the process.
Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 12th, 2010 at 9:28 am
This reminds me that I need to read Edstrom’s book, “Barbarians Led by Bill Gates”. It’s over 200 pages.